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Watch what you write on FaceBook, teachers

Gloria Y. Gadsden, an associate professor of sociology at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, was escorted off the campus on Wednesday because of jokes she had made on her Facebook page about wanting to kill students.

On Monday the professor posted this update: “Had a good day today, didn’t want to kill even one student.:-) Now Friday was a different story …” In another comment, on January 21, she wrote: “Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman, it’s been that kind of day.”

But it may not be that simple:

However, Ms. Gadsden said she believes her suspension stems from a racial-harassment complaint she filed with the university last month and from an op-ed article she wrote for The Chronicle in 2008 about the challenges of being a black faculty member.

And a little later:

After her opinion piece was published in The Chronicle, she said she faced disapproval of it on the campus. She said her life was made difficult by administrators, and she encountered so much hostility from one colleague that she filed a racial-harassment complaint with the university last month.

Now I know this isn’t about choral music, but it is about teaching and technology. We talk about that alot here!

Reader Interactions

Comments

What has been wonderful about our new technology is that we
can be linked with those who share our challenges, joys and
sorrows. It has been so comforting to be able to share when we feel
most alone or overrun in our jobs. But, since anyone can find
pretty much anything published online, with little effort, those
sharings become public and can easily be misunderstood, or simply
used against us by someone who has an agenda that involves our
furture employment. If you really need to vent, it might be best to
do it with online buddies via private email, and hopefully, those
are folks who have your best interests at heart, at least in the
global sense about caring for one another. Beyond that, though, I
think you have to imagine that your words are going to be read by
everyone, and that you should choose only what you are willing for
everyone to read on ay public site.

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